The Testicular Iron Shuttle: A "Nurse" Function of the Sertoli Cells (original) (raw)

Enrico Sertoli's initial paper describing the cells that bear his name was published in 1865 when he was 23 years of age. Sertoli's observations were made with primitive equipment by our standards, but they eventually led to the idea that these branched cells were "nutritive" to the germ cells. The close morphological association of the Sertoli cells with the germ cells made this "nurse" cell relationship implicit. Advances in the tools available to morphologists have led to the discovery of tight junctions between adjacent Sertoli cells and to demonstrations of the blood-testis barrier. Now it is generally accepted that Sertoli cells provide nutrients to, protection for, and reg- ulation of germ cells in the adluminal compartment of the testis. Demonstration at the molecular level of these basic tenets of the functions attributed to Sertoli cells requires the identification of the important molecules and in vivo experimental evidence of their requisite...